BILD in Venezuela | „Run as fast as you can!“

They appear seemingly out of nowhere! Venezuelan police officers on motorcycles are speeding down the highway, looking like a biker gang; brutal, heavily armed and prepared to do anything.

Tear gas grenades explode, sending fumes out onto the street. I can hardly see anything. Nonetheless, I’ve got to run. The special unit is taking aim at anything that is moving during the demonstration in the capital Caracas.

“Run as fast as you can,” says the man who is standing right next to me. “First, they’ll beat you up and then they’ll lock you up!”

I keep on running and keep on running, zigzagging through the streets to escape the pursuers on motorcycles. A policeman is mowing down a man right in front of me. He throws him to the ground and begins beating him with the baton.

I run to the entrance of a building. But the door is locked. Dammit! I’m trapped.

A retiree is battling a coughing fit right next to me. He can barely breath due to the explosion of tear gas grenades. We watch a succession of police officers on their motorcycles blast past us. One cop catches sight of us and turns around at lighning speed. He drops his bike in front of the building and pushes the retiree aside. Then, he goes on to hit me, shoving me against the wall. He goes through my pockests, finds my smartphone, steals it from and me, and then he blasts off.

★★★

It is 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and the humidity is at 74 %. More than three million people live in Caracas. We are working undercover in Venezuala. The socialist regime under President Nicolás Maduro (54) won’t allow Western reporters to enter the country. Those who inquire about a work visa for journalists are being ignored or getting rejected. That’s why we came as tourists from Miami on a Santa Barbara Airline flight, S 31520. The plane is half full and I am the only European passenger on board.

Deutsche Version

The airport is empty upon landing on Friday evening at 9.30 pm. We tell the border protection officer that we came to see the beautiful beaches. She smiles at us and stamps our passports. It is dangerous to work undercover in Venezuela. A journalist from “Fox News” was once held for 72 hours, because he was conducting research in a hospital. A BBC reporter was also arrested and expelled. In April, Venezuelan secret police went after a French film crew. They arrested them at the airport and held them in a prison for several weeks. We, reporters from the daily newspaper BILD, worked with local informants in Venezuela. We abstained from requesting interviews with key government and opposition leaders, so we wouldn’t draw suspicion.

Why did we do this? To be able to write down what President Maduro is trying to hide from the world. Which is the fact that hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets for nearly 60 days.

That people are starving because there isn’t enough bread to feed the population in a country that has the world’s largest oil reserves. And, that people are dying because the hospitals no longer have any drugs, such as antibiotics, to treat their ailing patients.